By the summer of 1983, the Grateful Dead had settled into a muscular, arena-ready version of themselves that doesn't always get its due. Brent Mydland, now four years into his tenure as keyboardist, had long since shed any awkwardness and was playing with real authority — his Hammond and synth work giving the band a fuller, harder-edged sound than the Keith Godchaux years. Jerry Garcia's playing in this period could be startlingly aggressive, and the rhythm section of Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart was locked in tight. This was the Dead as a well-oiled touring machine, cranking through mid-sized arenas across the country with the confidence of a band that had been doing this for nearly two decades. St. Paul's Civic Center was exactly the kind of mid-sized Midwestern room the Dead frequented during this era — a functional arena that held roughly sixteen thousand and delivered reliable acoustics when the band was on. The Twin Cities had a devoted Dead following, and shows here tended to draw a passionate, knowledgeable crowd that brought genuine energy to the room. Minnesota might lack the mythological weight of, say, Red Rocks or Winterland, but that doesn't mean the band phoned it in — if anything, the familiarity of these regional strongholds sometimes loosened things up in interesting ways. Of the two songs we have confirmed from this date, both reward attention.
"Big Railroad Blues" is a tight, rollicking blues workout, a Noah Lewis song the Dead had been playing since the early days. It's a short burst of pure joy — Garcia and Bob Weir trading licks over a chugging groove, everyone grinning — and how it's played often telegraphs the band's mood for the night. A sharp "Big Railroad Blues" bodes well. "Ship of Fools," meanwhile, is one of Garcia and Robert Hunter's most quietly devastating compositions, a lyrical meditation on betrayal and disillusionment from the 1974 album *From the Mars Hotel*. In 1983 Garcia's voice had a worn, slightly ragged quality that made the song's emotional weight land even harder than it did a decade earlier. Listen for the way he phrases the final verse and the way Brent colors the chords underneath him. If you've been sleeping on the early-'80s Dead, this St. Paul show is a fine place to wake up — crack it open and let the band make their case.